Just another WordPress site

Main menu

Tag Archives: pi

Post navigation

The Raspberry Pi’s low power consumption makes it well suited to the role of always-on web server. This post describes how to use a domain name with your Pi-based web site. Setting up a web site on the Pi is very easy and was explained in an earlier post of mine, just here.

This article explains how to set up a domain name with your web site, so that you can surf to http://your.domain.name instead of http://your.ip.address. It assumes that you have already have an Apache web site running. If not, please read the above post, before coming back here. Continue reading →

The Raspberry Pi’s low power consumption makes it well suited to the role of always-on web server. This post describes how to install Nextcloud onto the Pi. Nextcloud is an open source software package providing remote file sharing services, similar to Dropbox. But with Nextcloud, you retain ownership, security and control of the shared data. Nextcloud works well on a Pi 2 and Pi 3 but will run very slowly on a Pi 1.

The below procedure describes how to install Nextcloud version 12.0.0, the latest stable version at the time of writing (27th May 2017), but it should work for later/future versions too.Continue reading →

The Raspberry Pi comes with a default user called “pi”, whose initial password is also set to a well known default. While this makes it easy to use the system, it is not very secure. Anyone with physical access to your Pi could login with these widely known credentials. Furthermore, if you have enabled the SSH server, users on the local network could do the same.

Even if you have changed the “pi” user password, just having a user name that is universally known is still a security risk. The following article explains how to safely rename the “pi” user to something more secure. Continue reading →

This article presents a few informal benchmarks comparing the Raspberry Pi to the Raspberry Pi 2. The original Pi has a single core ARM v6 processor. The Pi 2 is quad core, ARM v7, and clocked faster than the Pi 1. But is it really six times as fast, as the makers claim ? Short answer: yes it is. And then some. Continue reading →

The Raspberry Pi’s low power consumption makes it well suited to the role of always-on server. This post describes how to install Owncloud onto the Pi. Owncloud is an open source software package providing remote file sharing services, similar to Dropbox. But with Owncloud, you retain ownership, security and control of the shared data. Owncloud works well on a Pi 2 and Pi 3 but will run very slowly on a Pi 1.

Update 20th November 2016 – There is a newer version of this article. Please see Simple Nextcloud Installation on Raspberry Pi. Nextcloud was forked fromownCloud in June 2016. It now seems to have become the natural successor to Owncloud. I recommend using Nextcloud rather than Owncloud. This article remains on line because it might be helpful to existing Owncloud users, particularly the parts about upgrading and using external USB media.

UPDATE 16th July 2016 – Nextcloud was forked from Owncloud in June 2016. The procedure below can be used both for Owncloud and the initial release of Nextcloud (version 9.0.52). Thanks to Dan for this information.

My Raspberry Pi 2 was purchased from RS Components in the UK. It was installed with Raspbian “Jessie” (Debian 8) by applying the image “2016-02-09-raspbian-jessie.img” downloaded from the raspberrypi.org downloads page. The following procedure was then performed without any further pre-work (other than enabling ssh in the basic setup). Continue reading →

Here is a tip for speeding up WordPress, especially if you are running it on a low power server. I made the change to WordPress running on a small ARM server, resulting in an immediate and dramatic speed up. It works because it prevents bots on the Internet from wasting your server resources. Continue reading →

This article explains how to send email from the Raspberry Pi. It is a generic procedure and also works on other Debian distributions. This is not for receiving mail, only for sending it. (Receiving email on the Pi is a much more involved process, requiring your Pi to preform the role of a full mail server).

The ability to send mail across the internet is useful. It enables your scripts and applications to send you email about system events or sending data such as pictures from a webcam. Continue reading →

The Raspberry Pi is a small Linux computer designed to help children learn programming. Being a full Linux System, it can also be used as a server or as the basis for various projects. The Pi’s low power consumption makes it particularly suited to the role of always-on web server.

This post describes how to create a simple photo gallery on the Pi, which can be shared over the internet with or without password protection. While not as polished as Flickr, Smugmug or similar services, it allows you to retain ownetship, control and security of the shared images. Continue reading →

The Raspberry Pi’s low power consumption makes it well suited to the role of always-on server. This post describes how to attach a simple webcam to a Raspberry Pi and have it take a snapshot every few minutes, and how to view the pictures on the web. Just like a traditional webcam.

My Raspberry Pi was purchased from New It in the UK. It was installed with Debian 7 (“Wheezy”) by applying the image “2014-01-07-wheezy-raspbian.zip” downloaded from the raspberrypi.org downloads page. The following procedure was then performed without any further pre-work (other than enabling ssh in the basic setup). Continue reading →

The Pi’s low power consumption makes it well suited to the role of always-on web server. This post describes how to install WordPress on the Raspberry Pi and get a blog going. Hosting your own blog means you keep ownership of your own data, and you are not dependant on blogger.com or whoever.

If you have already installed WordPress and just want to upgrade it, perhaps because a new version has been released, please see my article How to Upgrade WordPress on Linux

My Raspberry Pi was purchased from New It in the UK and runs Debian 7 (“Wheezy”).

Install Apache

Install the Apache web server with these commands. It might take 10 minutes or so to complete. A few other packages will also be installed. Continue reading →